October 30, 2012

I made a layout the other day. Not for an assignment, not for design team work. A layout, just for fun. And it took me FOREVER! I have become very assignment driven over the years, and I go into most of my projects with a specific theme, specific manufacturer, specific technique, etc that I'm supposed to focus on. So some of the choices have been made for me, and I go from there.

Without that direction, it's really up to me to decide what photos to scrap about, what product to scrap with, and what to do with the products that I pick out. It can be very overwhelming, and I tend to do a lot more sitting and staring at everything in my scraproom, then actual scrapping. I find this so strange, and I feel like such a wingnut as I sit there and say "I forgot how to scrap". But that's how it feels sometimes.

This layout did not come together easily. And it's nothing like I intended it to be. I actually started with some brand new papers, stickers, and washi tape from KI Memories (so glad that they're back with new stuff!). In the end, I used 2 of the tapes, 1 sticker, and one small strip of the patterned paper. In the process, I pulled out a lot of older product. Not what my plan was. Just how it happened.

I also started with these photos of Sarah that I borrowed off her iPod Touch. She had the photos individually, but she had also created this collage of four photos for Instagram. I decided to just use that, since the work was done for me. I printed it out as a 5"x5" photo.

I've really been into using grid patterns or ruled line patterns for my background paper on a lot of layouts. It's just a really neutral piece to built the page on, but not as plain as a solid piece of cardstock. I dug out this grid paper (it already had "October" printed in the upper left corner) from a My Mind's Eye Halloween collection. That's also where I found the black and white star patterned paper.

I started the page by adhereing the days of the week glitter border sticker (from KI Memories) along the top of the page, and a few strips of patterned paper along the bottom of the page. Then I picked out some yellow and red patterned papers, to go along with the black and white star paper, and added in a text paper as well. I choose my colors to go with Sarah's pajama pants in the photos. They are Mickey Mouse, so lots of red, with some black, white, and yellow.

I cut my patterned papers into strips of varying widths, and cut a little notch at the bottom of each piece to resemble banner pieces. I layered them all side by side, in the middle of the page, and towards the right side of the page. I was originally going to adhere my photos right on top of those papers. But I changed my mind at the last minute, and moved the photos to the left side of the page.

I knew I wanted some large red letters for my title. Since the days of the week sticker was glittery, I decided to use these super old red glittered chipboard letters from Making Memories. I added in some fun little tabs from Ormolu, and the red washi tape is from KI Memories. I'm in love with that tape!

What's that camera? A rub-on? I can't even remember the last time I have used a rub-on. Lol. The little camera badge fit perfectly in the center! And check it out. I even wrote out my journaling by hand. I'm not a fan of it, even though I know it's important to get our handwriting onto some of our layouts for future generations. I won't lie. The main reason I wrote it by hand is that I was in a rush. I actually started taking pictures of this layout, when I realized that I hadn't journaled on it. I grabbed a pen and scribbled something out, without even moving from where I was taking pictures.

While this layout didn't exactly come easily, I think it's kind of a fun one. I pulled out some more product, and printed more photos, so I'm hoping to work on some more layouts. Just for fun. I've been missing doing that, and really want to make an effort to do more of it.

October 29, 2012

I feel so bad that I just disappeared for the last week. I kind of, sort of, decided to take a break from a lot of things. I've been feeling very overwhelmed with work and life lately. I managed to get the important things done and in place, and then stepped back a bit from everything else. Including this little blog of mine.

There was no slowing down this weekend though. Friday night was the last home football game for the high school, which meant the last football game for the marching band as well. I absolutely LOVE watching the band play at the games, and perform their half-time shows. LOVE IT! They have such fun, and show soooooo much school spirit.

I only got to watch one of the games this year, which meant I only got to see one of their half-time shows. But for good reason, as I was working the band's snack bar the rest of the games. I actually like doing it, as long as I can work one of the windows. I can't bring myself to work the chili and nachos, for some reason. Lol.

{Older photo that I might have shared already}

Saturday morning, we were on the soccer field bright and early for Sarah's first game. 7:00am, to warm up for the 8:00am game. To be totally honest, I didn't show up until 7:50. It's nice to get to sleep in a bit, since we live just a few blocks away from the field, so it's not a big deal if we take two cars. Lol.

Sarah's team had a double header, with a short break in between games. Not quite long enough to do anything, so we usually just hang around the field and watch the other games. They won their first game, 3-1, with Sarah scoring 1 of the goals. They won their second game, 6-1, with Sarah scoring 4 of the goals. She's definitely a scorer! She was counting up how their team has done this season. The team as a whole has scored 44 goals (in 10 games), and Sarah has scored 25 of those goals. Nice!

{Older, blurry photo that I might have shared before}

Alyssa's game was after Sarah's second game. It's nice when they play one after the other, instead of having a huge gap in between. And when they're on the same field. It makes for a very long day though. Especially when it's hot out. Which it was this weekend. It's the end of October, and we were dying being in the sun for 8 hours straight. Alyssa's team won their game, 4-3, and Alyssa scored 1 goal. She played such an excellent game. Alyssa has amazing footwork, and a great left foot on her (even though she's a righty).

After the game, we went back to the house, where Alyssa got ready to go to a Halloween party with some friends. She debated not even going, because she was so tired, but finally got up the energy to go. Or maybe I should say that she finally was able to wake me up from my nap, so I could drive her there. Lol.

Joe always says "I live for Saturdays", because he truely LOVES coaching soccer. But then we both say "I hate Saturday night" later in the day, because we are soooooo tired and drained from being out there on the field all day. Lol. I just tell the girls that it's exhausing watching them be awesome out there all day ;)

Oh, and Sarah had a volleyball tournament on Saturday too. After her second game, and before Alyssa's game, we ran her over to the high school, where the Jr High volleyball teams were having an all day tournament. Volleyball is a new sport to us, as this is the first time Sarah has played.

We had no idea how the tournament worked, and kept trying to text her to see what was going on. We dropped her off at 1:00, and only heard from her once, a few hours later. By 8:00pm, I was really wondering what was going on. Was it bad that I hadn't gone to the school earlier? Maybe. Lol. But I knew that there were other parents that weren't there either, so that made me feel less quilty. I ended up running down to the school, and when I walked in they were just getting ready to start the championship game. Yep, our school had made it all the way to the championships.

It was intense watching the games. The other school won the first game, and then our school won the second game. So we went into a third game to decide the winning team. And at about 9:30pm, our team ended up winning, taking the championship for the second year in a row!!! The girls were so excited and they all got tshirts, and a trophy to display at school. Sarah was so funny too. She told me, in a very proud voice, that her and a few of the other girls made "the best bench warmers ever"! Turns out, she didn't get to play that much. But I'm glad she was OK with it, still managed to have lots of fun.

Needless to say, we all slept very well Saturday night.

And then Sunday, we woke up and did all of those fun things that responsible people do on their days off. Things like laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, errands, etc. You'd think that there would be a little time to rest and relax on the weekend, right? Not so much at this house. Lol.

October 23, 2012

What seems like just a while ago, but was really over a year and a half ago, I shared a tutorial of sorts on how I photograph my projects. You can see itHERE. I knew that I didn't have much to share on my blog going into this week, so I thought I would do a quick little video about how I edit those images of my projects.

Just like there are many, many different ways that people photograph their projects ... there are just as many different ways that people edit those photos. So my way isn't the "right" way and it's not for everyone. This is just me, showing how I personally edit my images.

A few things that I feel the need to mention:

I appologize if the video looks small and isn't all that clear. The program I'm using to record what I'm doing on my computer is cool, and the videos look good on my end. But trying to figure out what format to save them in (there's TONS of options), and getting them to upload to YouTube and looking good? It hasn't been the easiest thing. You can also watch this on YouTube, where there's an option to make it a tad bit bigger.

These few steps work perfectly on almost all of my photos. I usually start out with some pretty decent photos though. You really do need to start with a good image, to get good results. You can correct wonky colors, bad color temps, bad exposures, and more. But it's just a lot more work, and you're better off taking the time to learn some tips and tricks to getting solid photos to start out with.

Like I have mentioned before, I like to leave a bit of a border (background) around my projects. This is personal preference. I know a lot of designers like to crop all the way to the edges of their layouts/cards. I do actually do this for certain projects, but I find that it's just easier and quicker for me to leave a bit of a border. Also, since I do have a lot of layouts with a white cardstock background, I think it helps show off my layout better. But like I said, it's personal preference.

I hope at least a few of you might find this useful in some way. I get asked about how I photograph projects quite a bit, and I'm always more than willing to share whatever info I can. I was taught by some very patient scrapping friends years and years ago, and I like to be able to share what I know, in hopes that it might help someone else. Let me know if you have any questions at all!

October 19, 2012

I have another layout up today on the Bella Blvd blog, as we share projects made with our new mid release collection, Kiss Me.

Before the girls left for Disneyland, I asked if I could take a few picture of each of them, since I knew I needed to work on some layouts with the new Kiss Me collection. So there's really no particular story behind this photo of Sarah. Just me forcing her to take a photo. Lol. I was pulling out some of the papers and pieces that I thought would work well with her photo, not having any idea what the layout was going to be about.

Then I thought about what she says to me every time I tell her I love her. She replies with "Do you really?", in her best sarcastic, teenager way. To which I will usually say "Hmmmm. Let me think about it". Followed by a few seconds of thinking, and then a "You know what? I really DO love you". It's our routine, it's what we do. And I thought it was the perfect little story to get down on a layout.

I was originally only going to use Sarah's photo on the page. In fact, I had some navy blue chipboard letters out to spell "I love you". But when I noticed the "I love you" thought bubble sticker, I knew I had to add a photo of myself as well.

For a minute, I thought about making my own larger handmade thought bubble to hold Sarah's "Do you really", but using this journaling sticker seemed a whole lot easier. Lol.

I adore this little cloud! It's so stinkin cute, and ended up being the perfect spot to add the year with some white number stickers. If you were to look really closely at this photo (or clicked on it to see it larger), you might notice some small tears on my grid background paper. I was going go adhere the photo of myself, on which I have to use glue dots because of the texture on the back of my photo paper, and I dropped the photo. That stuff happens to me more than I care to admit ;)

Head on over to the Bella blog again, as we have a TON of projects that we're sharing today. Five layouts and six cards to be exact. Lots of good stuff!

October 18, 2012

Did you catch the Kiss Me collection reveal yesterday on the Bella Blvd blog? I hope you love it as much as we do! For the rest of the week, we're sharing lots and lots of layouts and cards using the Kiss Me collection, so that you can see it in action.

One of the things that I love about Bella Blvd's collections, is that while they may be themed at first glace, but they are also very versitle and can work with so many everyday photos. While Kiss Me is a Valentine's collection, it's got so many great patterns and pieces that can be used for anything. I've had these photos of Alyssa and Haley for years, and never got around to scrapping them. Until now.

I have been wanting to use this Background Lace Circle cut from my Silhouette library for ages. I love circles, and the idea of filling the circles up with patterned paper, cardstock, or embellishments seemed like fun.

I used the navy blue patterned paper to cut the background piece from, and I intented to then cut circles from all of the other patterned papers to fill in the empty spaces.

However, when I was pulling off my die cut background piece, and all of the circles from the negative space, I realized that those circles would work just fine if I flipped them over. The backside of the blue patterned paper is a fabulous grid pattern with lots and lots of large patterned circles all over. I liked the way my pieces looked when flipped over, and they were already cut to size, which was a big time-saver, instead of cutting all new circles. So I just went with it.

I didn't originally plan on using this sticker on my page. But when I was trimming my photos after printing, they ended up being just shy of 6" tall for some reason, so they didn't quite reach the length of my page. I just covered the tiny gap between the photos with this sticker, adhered with pop dots.

I love that all three of the Sienna chipboard alphabet sets that were a part of Bella's summer release match perfectly with the Kiss Me collection.

I also added some buttons into my circle design, just so my layout wasn't all paper and stickers. A few simple threaded buttons, along with a few stickers adhered with pop dots, add the perfect finishing touch to embellish the page.

I loved the little ice cream cone on the Cute Cuts sheet of patterned paper, and knew it was perfect for the front of a card. I cut the card on my Silhouette as well, using the 3x3 Circle Pattern Card design, but I cut mine as a 4x4" card.

I cut the actual card base from this fabulous chevron paper. It cut out all of the circles as well, and then you cut out the top piece seperately. I cut this piece from the navy blue patterned paper, and adhered it to the front of the card using pop dots.

The backside of the chevron paper is a great pink text paper with tone-on-tone hearts on it. I was going to leave it like that, so that you would see that pink text paper through the holes in the front of the card. But in the end, I felt like it needed a touch of white, so I adhered a scrap of white cardstock inside the card.

Head on over to the Bella Blvd blog, and check out what some of the other designers have created with the Kiss Me collection! There are a ton of layouts and cards featured today, and it really shows the collection in action, and the different ways it can be used!

October 16, 2012

Yep. That's where my girls are for a few days this week. At the happiest place on earth!

They have the week off school, for some sort of break. It's the end of their first quarter, so I'm guessing that's why. Alyssa's dad was on vacation this week, so him and his mom (Alyssa's grandma) decided to take the girls to Disneyland for a few days.

I wish Joe and I were there too, but we're both working. It's nice that they get to do something fun this week, so that they weren't stuck with me and the daycare kids all week. They love those kids and are a huge help to me. But they also get bored with it pretty quickly.

I love that I can pull up Instagram throughout the day and find photo updates from the girls. That I then take screenshots of on my iPod touch, and email to myself so that I can then pull them up on my computer. They're not always the best quality, but I'll take low quality pics over no pics any day.

I'm extremely grateful that Alyssa's dad's family always includes Sarah in what they do. I also LOVE grandparents that aren't scared to do the crazy stuff, like go on roller coasters (that's Alyssa's grandma behind Sarah). We have a few grandparents like that in our families.

They are showing off how wet their tushies got, after going on Splash Mountain. Which was fine with them, since it was super hot out. I think they're in the mid 90's all week.

I'm using my free evenings to work on some new projects, with Bella Blvd's new mid-release, which we will be revealing tomorrow! Stop by tomorrow to see the collection in full, and then I will be sharing all new projects the rest of the week!

October 12, 2012

For the last two weeks, on the Bella Blvd blog, we have been introducing and getting to know each member of our new Design Team. If you haven't checked our blog in a while, you should. I'm excited about the designers I'll be working with over the next year.

Today, Stephanie and I are both re-introducing ourselves, and sharing a little bit about ourselves. You can check it out HERE, and find out what's going on in the photo above. Just a little insight into what I actually work on during the majority of my "Bella" work time hours.

October 11, 2012

I have been trying to find something to share and blog about for the last few days, and I very randomly remembered this layout that I havn't shared yet. I created this for Create: Stamping, which came out not too long ago.

I knew I was doing some stamping on stickers for this layout, so that's where I started. By picking out some letter stickers. I went with the aqua, and then started picking out my patterned papers to coordinate. I chose a aqua, navy blue, orange, and brown color scheme. Once I had my Fancy Pants patterned papers picked out, and my fun scalloped border from Heidi Swapp, I added some designer tapes and buttons, and I was all set.

I decided on these alpha stickers from Bella Blvd. They were a good size, and not super skinny, so that the stamping showed up nicely Then I decided on a woodgrain stamp and I knew I wanted to use brown ink. So I dug out all of my brown ink pads, at which point, I realized I have a LOT of brown ink pads to choose from.

I tried out several different kinds of ink on some extra letter stickers until I found one that worked well and didn't smear. For these stickers, I found that the chalk ink worked the best. But I would definately try this technique out on whatever stickers you're using, since all stickers are made differently.

I printed out all of my photos in black and white, since there was a wide variety of colors going on in each photo. When pulling photos from different dates and times, with totally different colors and looks to them, I find that changing my photos to black and white unifies the photos and just helps tie them together.

Because I ended up with the cream calendar patterned paper behind my photos, I wanted them to stand out a bit more. I had left a white border around my photos when I trimmed them after printing, so I just used my finger to swipe some navy blue paint around the edges.

Let's just take a break from the scrappin talk for a minute, and talk about how completely adorable these little ones are! They kill me with their cuteness! All. Day. Long.

I have to say that I really, really love this layout. It might have something to do with when I made this (months ago) or what was going on when I made this. But working on this layout came at a time when I needed to have fun with scrapbooking again. Not that I wasn't having fun with what I was doing at this particular time. There were just certain things going on that were holding me back. Vaque, I know. All I know is that I had fun with this layout, it came together so easily for me, I loved the finished layout, and it just made me happy. And that's the way scrapbooking should make us feel, right :)

October 08, 2012

Yesterday we had our new Step-By-Step Project Sheet, for the month of October, go up on the Bella Blvd blog.

For this month's project sheet layout, I wanted to focus on lots and lots of layering. There are so many fun patterned papers in the Too Cute To Spook collection, and by layering pieces of each paper together, it makes it easy to use a wide variety of those papers without it overwhelming the page.

I used six different patterns on this page, and also cut some clouds out of a seventh paper. The backside of the Full Moon paper has "too cute to spook" written all over it, and made for a great background paper for the base of the page.

I roughed up the edges of all of my papers with an edge distressor, which adds a ton of texture to the papers. And then I got to layering those papers all together, adding the adorable photo on top (which I borrowed from my good friend Lynn) with lots of pop dots for even more dimension.

I used some black chipboard letters for my title, combined with the orange alpha stickers from the Too Cute To Spook collection.

You can view and download the project sheet, with a full supply list and complete instructions, HERE.

October 03, 2012

As part of the Halloween Extravaganza going on at Kerri Bradford Studio this week, I have a new altered Halloween project to share.

I have a confession. I don't go all out every Halloween and decorate my house top to bottom. I'm closer to the not-decorating-at-all side of the spectrum. Lol. I see photos everywhere I look of spooky, but really cute, Halloween decorations filling up every nook and cranny of homes, and I wish I could learn to incorporate it into my house in the same way. But I can't. So I limit my Halloween decor to the one small table by my front door. Which means I keep my decor items nice and simple, just like these paper mache "BOO" letters.

I picked up these 8" paper mache letters at the craft store a few weeks ago. I always enjoy working with paper mache letters and boxes for altered projects. They're so easy to paint and cover with papers.

I knew I wanted to use the diamond background shape from the Foundations: Trick or Treat kit on the front of each letter, so I cut 3 seperate pieces from some Bella Blvd Halloween patterned paper. The other side of this paper is orange, which was what I was originally going to use. But I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't want to re-cut any pieces, so I just flipped it over and used the backside.

I thought about painting the letters, but I just couldn't settle on a good color. Some sort of cream seemed to be the right choice, but I'm not a cream kind of girl. I thought some text tissue paper might be fun to decoupage on, and I thought for sure I had some. But I didn't. What I did find was some cream washi tape with black dots from 7 Gypsies. So I simply covered the front of each letter with torn strips of tape.

I wasn't too neat about it, and I didn't even worry about how much tape was folded over the edges of the letters. I then painted on some black acrylic paint around the edges of the letters. Once again, I wasn't neat about it at all, and just made sure the paint went up to the edge of the tape.

I spritzed on some white misting spray over the taped/painted letters. That part didn't work quite as planned, since the ink never did dry. I'm guessing it was because of the texture of the tape. I didn't stress about it smearing, and just covered the entire letters with Mod Podge.

After that dried, I then adhered the diamond paper pieces to the letters, using glue dots. I used my scissors to cut off the excess from around the edges of the letters and the insides of each letter. I added just a few layered bats to the letters, and called it "done".

October 01, 2012

I am constantly in need of birthday cards, and never seem to have enough on hand when I need them. So I thought I would whip up some quick and easy cards to have on hand. I know I've said this exactly same thing before, and made more birthday cards. But I seem to have gone through all of those already. So I'm on a mission again, to restock my card drawer.

I've been wanting to try out the confetti trend that is so popular these days, and thought it would be fun to add to the top of a cupcake. I used the cupcake from Kerri's This & That: Love [just shapes] kit. I cut the bottom part of the cupcake from patterned paper, and the top part from vellum. My intention was to put the punched confetti under the vellum and sew around the edges, but it didn't work out so well for me.

So I ran the vellum part of the cupcake through my Xyron, so that the entire piece was covered in adhesive. Then I sprinkled punched confetti over it, and pushed it all down to cover the piece. The word "enjoy", from Kerri's Pack Your Bags kit, was perfect for my sentiment.

Speaking of Kerri, she's having a Halloween Extravaganza this week on her blog. All Halloween kits, with the exception of the new All Hallow's Eve kit, are on sale for 30% off. She's also sharing Halloween projects all week long, starting with a gorgeous, detailed canvas by Nichol Magouirk. I put together a little something as well, that will be up later this week.